Who raises a voice for us?
Yet we are at least as innocent as the nobility of France. We
sink among no sighs except our own. And if they give us
sympathy--what then? Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but
for the Rich, there is Compensation."
"Is that Harriet?" said his wife moving in her bed.
The Hand-Loom weaver was recalled from his reverie to the
urgent misery that surrounded him.
"No!" he replied in a quick hoarse voice, "it is not Harriet."
"Why does not Harriet come?"
"She will come no more!" replied the weaver; "I told you so
last night: she can bear this place no longer; and I am not
surprised."
"How are we to get food then?" rejoined his wife; "you ought
not to have let her leave us. You do nothing, Warner. You
get no wages yourself; and you have let the girl escape."
"I will escape myself if you say that again," said the weaver:
"I have been up these three hours finishing this piece which
ought to have been taken home on Saturday night."
"But you have been paid for it beforehand. You get nothing
for your work. A penny an hour! What sort of work is it,
that brings a penny an hour?"
"Work that you have often admired, Mary; and has before this
gained a prize.
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